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MARSHAL FOCH 



ADDRESS OF 

EDGAR A. BANCROFT 

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AT CHICAGO'S MEETING OF WELCOME 
TO 

MONSIEUR LE MARECHAL FOCH 



AT THE AUDITORIUM 
NOVEMBER 5, 1921 



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MARSHAL FOCH 




OUR YEARS and a half ago we met here 
to welcome and honor a military hero of 
France — Marshal Joffre, the victor of the 
Marne. To-night we meet to welcome and honor 
the military hero, not of France alone, but of the world 
— Marshal Foch, the victor of the War. Then we 
made a vow to support to the uttermost this Nation's 
declaration of war. To-night we pledge the supreme 
soldier of that war as the messenger of peace. 

For more than forty years an ominous shadow 
had lain across the national life of France. Then 
suddenly in August, 1914, the long threatened march 
on Paris began; and for four agonizing years, France 
bore the brunt of the German assault. She not only 
gave her sons and her resources in fullest measure, but 
her soil was the battleground; her cities and villages, 
her orchards and vineyards, her factories and her 
mines, were ruined and destroyed, some of them 
in wantonness or with fiendish calculation. No other 
nation, not even martyred Belgium, suffered such 
destruction. And there were losses that no repara- 
tions can ever repair. 



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Through all those desperate years, France held 
the front line of Liberty. By the tenacity and courage 
of her soldiery, the military skill of her officers, and 
the unconquerable spirit of her people, reflected and 
focussed in the genius and spirit of the Supreme Com- 
mander, she made the largest contribution to final 
victory. 

Yet there is to-day no bitterness or hatred in the 
heart of France toward her ancient but now conquered 
foe. The brave do not hate. Faithful and uncom- 
plaining in the days of her humiliation, France cannot 
but be chivalrous in her day of triumph. During the 
long years that followed the wrongs of 1870-71, France 
was patient and forbearing, and kept the peace. 
To-day she longs for peace more than ever before. 
But her liberty and her security — bought at such an 
awful price — she must not neglect. 

Is not France now entitled, has she not earned 
the right, to dwell in the same confident peace that 
England and the United States enjoy? Yet how can 
she relax her vigilance until her Eastern neighbor, like 
our own Northern neighbor of a hundred friendly 
years, proves herself worthy of respect and trust? 

Until Germany asks France to forgive, let no one 
ask France to forget ! 



In the military principles, character and success 
of Marshal Foch, there is a quality that pecuUarly 
appeals to America's ideals and imagination. Scien- 
tifically trained engineer, artillerist and strategist as 
he was, he yet believed, and for many years taught 
the officers of France, the dominance of moral forces 
in war. Faith, hope, determination, he said, are 
factors as real and as necessary as intelligence, study, 
and energy in action; ''a battle is lost morally, not 
materially;" victory is the outcome of moral rather 
than material forces; and the true commander is 
''the soul of an Army." And in the War he gave 
frequent illustrations of this creed: 

All the world remembers — and always will remem- 
ber — the message of General Foch to Headquaters at 
a critical moment on the third day of the Battle of 
the Marne: ''My center is giving way; my right is 
falling back. The situation is excellent: I shall attack." 

When, in October, the German hordes had swept 
the Belgians back to the Yser, and their heroic King 
Albert doubted whether his shattered army could 
halt the superior forces, it was General Foch who 
said to him: "It is vital to hold the line here. French 
troops will help you." And the line was held. 

Then followed the terrible battle of Ypres, with 
its new horror and infamy of poison gas, that broke 
the British lines, and revealed the unflinching valor 




of the Canadian volunteers. The British commander 
was considering an order of retreat, when he learned 
that General Foch was near, and immediately con- 
sulted him. General Foch strongly advised that the 
city be held at whatever cost. And it was held, and held 
gloriously, by the British until reserves came to fill 
their gaping ranks. 

So, in the darkest hour of the defense of Verdun — 
the greatest battle in all history — General Foch 
encouraged the indomitable spirit of commander and 
men; and the Crown Prince, and all his vast array 
of artillery and shock troops, fell back defeated before 
"They shall not pass." 

At Chateau Thierry it was Marshal Foch, Gen- 
eralissimo of the Allied Armies, who turned the defen- 
sive into an offensive that started the Germans on 
their way back to the Rhine. 

And finally, when the long night of agony and 
blood drew near its end, and the German lines had 
been retreating for three months, and terms of an 
armistice had been asked and given — three years ago 
almost to this very day — and it was urged that the 
terms should be unconditional surrender, it was 
Marshal Foch who said: "If these terms are accepted, 
this War is already ended; therefore, it is not worth 
the life of one brave soldier to gain harder terms." 
Like the great Silent Commander of Victory in our 

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Civil War, Marshal Foch in the moment of triumph 
thought only of Peace. 

It is a part of the fine quality of his leadership 
that he has heart. In all his responsibilities and fame, 
he has never forgotten' the friends of his little native 
village in the Pyrenees, or the troubles and anxieties 
of the young officer, or the common soldier. And 
somehow our American boys in France, though many 
of them never saw him, knew this, and responded to 
his human appeal with an added dash and bravery 
which all the world called superb. That is why there 
is so much warmth in the welcome of the overseas 
men. Some of them know that they are here because 
he stopped the War as soon as he could. Yet, when 
they were in France, their sense of his leadership only 
made them more forgetful of self, more ready to fight, 
to suffer, and to die under his command. 

Therefore, the welcome of the men of the American 
Legion means most, and is most grateful, to their old 
Commander. Already he has received it in very moving 
and dramatic form. And it awaits him wherever he 
may go in our country. 

This meeting, representative of all the people of 
our State and City, expresses to Marshal Foch the 
pride every American has in his triumph, the gratitude 
every American feels for his commanding service in 
hastening the end. It expresses also a deeper, ten- 

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derer feeling in many hearts, that he was the leader of 
a Cause sanctified to them by the loss of those most 
dear. These mothers and wives may not be in the 
throngs that acclaim his coming, but they welcome 
him none the less with proud tears. If they bring 
no new pledge to France, their reason is that spoken 
by Theodore Roosevelt: "1 have already given to 
France my best." 

Every American heart that suffered any anxiety of 
war, and every thoughtful and humane citizen will 
welcome, and will wish to aid, this Warrior-Hero in 
his pilgrimage of peace. 



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